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Romans 9 :: English Standard Version (ESV)

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God’s Sovereign Choice

Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:1 - I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit—
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:2 - that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:3 - For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers,[fn] my kinsmen according to the flesh.
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:4 - They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:5 - To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.
(Gen 25:19–23 )
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:6 - But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel,
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:7 - and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:8 - This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:9 - For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.”
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:10 - And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac,
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:11 - though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:12 - she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:13 - As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:14 - What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means!
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:15 - For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:16 - So then it depends not on human will or exertion,[fn] but on God, who has mercy.
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:17 - For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:18 - So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:19 - You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:20 - But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?”
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:21 - Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:22 - What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:23 - in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:24 - even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:25 - As indeed he says in Hosea,
“Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’
and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’”
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:26 - “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:27 - And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel[fn] be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved,
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:28 - for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.”
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:29 - And as Isaiah predicted,
“If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring,
we would have been like Sodom
and become like Gomorrah.”

Israel’s Unbelief

Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:30 - What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith;
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:31 - but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness[fn] did not succeed in reaching that law.
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:32 - Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone,
Unchecked Copy BoxRom 9:33 - as it is written,
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense;
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
ESV Footnotes
Or brothers and sisters
Greek not of him who wills or runs
Or children of Israel
Greek a law of righteousness
ESV

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001, 2007, 2011, 2016 by Crossway Books and Bibles, a Publishing Ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

See detailed copyright information.

For more information on this translation, see the ESV Preface.

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